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Oklahoma City Thunder notebook: Scott Brooks pleased after first quarter

The score was 16-16 after the first quarter of Wednesday night's game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, and Thunder coach Scott Brooks was far more pleased than he was disgusted.

BY JOHN ROHDE •
Published: January 9, 2013

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The score was 16-16 after the first quarter of Wednesday night's game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, and Thunder coach Scott Brooks was far more pleased than he was disgusted.

Oklahoma City's Serge Ibaka (9) watches the ball after a shot in front of Minnesota's Andrei Kirilenko (47) and Nikola Pekovic (14) during an NBA basketball game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Minnesota Timberwolves at Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City, Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2013. Oklahoma City won 106-84. Photo by Bryan Terry, The Oklahoman

“I'll put up with the bad offense as long as we're not down 16 to 30,” Brooks said. “But you know what, some nights are going to be like that. We're going to be running in mud, our shots are not going to fall, but our defense was really consistent throughout the game. I thought sooner or later if we just continued to defend, we would create some opportunities.”

OKC trailed 20-16 with 10:30 left in the second quarter and from that point forward outscored the Timberwolves 90-64 to post a 106-84 victory in front of a sellout crowd 18,203 at Chesapeake Energy Arena.

The Thunder is second in the NBA in scoring at 105.4, so generating offense rarely is a concern.

“We will take that any day,” three-time scoring champ Kevin Durant said of a 16-16 tie after the first 12 minutes. “We are not worried about our offense. We always say we can give ourselves a chance to win if our offense isn't clicking, but we play defense. The guys were doing a great job of helping each other out. We were talking, switching and rebounding the ball, too. If we do those things, it is a great ingredient for winning so we have to keep it up.”

Thunder reserve forward Nick Collison freely admitted the first period was not aesthetically pleasing.

“It was an ugly game early, but we were happy we weren't giving them easy shots,” Collison said. “It was more of a priority to stop guys and really be up and be where we're supposed to be. Usually, most games we're going to score. We're one of the better offensive teams in the league so we have to be good defensively to get where we want to go.”

The Thunder shot 28.6 percent from the field in the first quarter, but never dipped below 52 percent thereafter — 52.9 percent in the second period, 57.9 percent in the third and 52.6 percent in the final period to finish at 47.4 percent after missing 17 of its first 23 shots from the floor.